And while they grew weary and discouraged, and concluded that, if he should be found, it might be in the far distant hills of Moab, or the wilds of Philistia, or they knew not where, and went back with hearts unsatisfied, and debating whether he were yet a wanderer upon earth, or whether so impossible a thing as they deemed his translation to heaven, without dying, had taken place, the glorified Elijah was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and David.  But even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like him.  There, with a body like unto Christ’s own future glorious body, he sat, with but one compeer—­Enoch, and he, transcending all the hosts of the redeemed in the foretasted glories of the resurrection.  Adam, by whom came death, sees in him that which he himself is to share, when by one Man, also, shall come the resurrection from the dead.  Abel, whose feet first trod the dark, cold stream, leaving his murdered body behind him, beholds with love and wonder him who passed the river of death ("that ancient river!”) without dying.  Even the Word beholds in him an earnest of his own incarnation, resurrection, and ascension from Olivet.  To-day, our loved ones in heaven look upon him, and say, as Peter did at this prophet’s visit on Tabor, (when he spoke of tabernacles there—­“one for Elias,”) “Master, it is good for us to be here.”  But we, like the “fifty strong men,” would find them and bring them back; and, like Peter, would build tabernacles to retain them.  The family circle is gathered together at some birthday or festival, and, perhaps, we long for the departed, and think that they long for us; and we would bring them back, and place them in their deserted chairs.  We are “strong men” in the power of grief, and in our wishes; but the search for Elijah is the counterpart of our vain desires and most unreasonable sorrow.

When our friends have gone to heaven, it is not apt to be heaven, so much as earthly sorrow, which fills our minds.  Happily, we have been taught to believe, and we do generally believe, that the souls of the righteous enter immediately into glory; that their happiness is perfect, though not completed; they are as happy as disembodied spirits can be; unspeakably happier than they were here, but still not in full possession of those sources of pleasure which they will receive when their bodies are raised, and their whole natures are made complete.  But “to die is gain;” it is “to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better;” it is entering “into the joy of their Lord.”  That dreary thought of sleeping after death till the day of judgment; the idea that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, became insensible at death, and that the last thing which Jacob, for example, knew, was Joseph’s kiss, and the next thing which he will know will be the archangel’s trump, the interval of many thousands of years being a perfect blank in his existence, is so unlike the benevolent order of God’s providence